Ideology, Psychology, and Law

Edited by Jon Hanson and Series edited by John Jost

Description

Formally, the law is based solely on reasoned analysis, devoid of ideological biases or unconscious influences. Judges claim to act as umpires applying the rules, not making them. They frame their decisions as straightforward applications of an established set of legal doctrines, principles, and mandates to a given set of facts. As most legal scholars understand, however, the impression that the legal system projects is largely an illusion. As far back as 1881, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. made a similar claim, writing that "the felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-men, have a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed."

More than a century later, we are now much closer to understanding the mechanisms responsible for the gap between the formal face of the law and the actual forces shaping it. Over the last decade or so, political scientists and legal academics have begun studying the linkages between ideologies, on one hand, and legal principles and policy outcomes on the other. During that same period, mind scientists have turned to understanding the psychological sources of ideology. This book is the first to bring many of the world's experts on those topics together to examine the sometimes unsettling interactions between psychology, ideology, and law, and to better understand what, beyond and beneath the logic, animates the law.

Chapter 16 - The Fine Line Between Interrogation and Retribution.Avani Mehta Sood and Kevin CarlsmithChapter 16 Legal Comment - How to Advocate Against Torture? Understanding and Countering the Dynamics of Support for Abusive InterrogationJames Cavallaro

Chapter 17 - Two Social Psychologists' Reflections on Situationism and the Criminal Justice System.Lee Ross and Donna Shestowsky

Ideology, Psychology, and Law

Edited by Jon Hanson and Series edited by John Jost

Author Information

Jon Hanson is Alfred Smart Professor of Law and the Director of The Project on Law and Mind Sciences at Harvard Law School. He is the editor and co-founder of The Situationist Blog, which provides a forum to discuss situational forces influencing law, policies, and social institutions. His award-winning teaching and scholarship meld social psychology, social cognition, economics, history, and law.

Ideology, Psychology, and Law

Edited by Jon Hanson and Series edited by John Jost

Reviews and Awards

"Ideology, Psychology, and Law is a revolution in the making. Encyclopedic in its breadth, this volume captures a moment - like the early heady days of the law and economics movement - when bold, new inquiries are suddenly possible. For those who still cling to the centrality of preferences and incentives, this book will be usefully threatening." -- Ian Ayres, William K. Townsend Professor, Yale Law School, and author of Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to Get Things Done

"This volume is the first of its kind, employing the latest mind science research to illuminate the motivated and unconscious inspirations for ideology, law, and policy. The superbly edited and timely volume is a highly accessible, interdisciplinary collection, bringing together the perspectives and insights of many of the world's most thoughtful and influential social psychologists, political scientists, and legal scholars. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to better understand the psychological winds buffeting our institutions of collective governance." -- Philip G. Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, and President of the Heroic Imagination Project

"With this collection, Jon Hanson and the contributors to this volume have gone a long way towards breaking the iron grip that Law and Economics have held on serious legal policy analysis. By incorporating insights from psychology and other behavioral and mind sciences, this volume maps an important and inspiring interdisciplinarity that will guide path breaking work in the future." -- Gerald Torres and Lani Guinier, co-authors of The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy

"This volume shows what ideology is and does. The chapters written by psychologists demonstrate that there is little about the mind's work that can be called 'neutral.' The legal scholars who contribute to this volume push forward to ask how the law must itself bend toward justice, if such is the case. This compendium contains facts and ideas that, if heeded, may bring the law closer to the aspiration that everybody be equal before the law." -- Mahzarin R. Banaji, Cabot Professor of Social Ethics, Department of Psychology, Harvard University

"Insightful, comprehensive, boundary-spanning. Hanson pulls together research and ideas from multiple disciplines to create a new way of looking at the most important legal questions of our time." -- Sheena S. Iyengar, S.T. Lee Professor of Business, Columbia Business School, and author of The Art of Choosing

"It is long, written by researchers as an encyclopedic resource for thinkers who want to learn more about how we make decisions and who are willing to take time to ponder how to apply that knowledge in the day-to-day challenges and questions of litigation advocacy. You might think of it like a series of densely written academic articles that one has to chew, digest, and ponder, one at a time. The articles require study, and for those willing to do it, the knowledge will be worth the effort... The summaries of literature the chapters within this book provide are invaluable to those interested in learning more about how decision-making is done both psychologically and contextually, what we know now about how to influence that process, and (perhaps most importantly) how very much we still have to learn." -- Rita R. Handrich, PhD, review in The Jury Expert

Ideology, Psychology, and Law

Edited by Jon Hanson and Series edited by John Jost

From Our Blog

The law is based on reasoned analysis, devoid of ideological biases or unconscious influences. Judges frame their decisions as straightforward applications of an established set of legal doctrines, principles, and mandates to a given set of facts. Or so we think. We sat down with Director of the Project on Law and Mind Sciences at Harvard Law School (PLMS) and editor of Ideology, Psychology, and Law, Professor Jon Hanson, to discuss the interaction of psychology and the law, and how they interact to form ideologies by which we all must live.